


True Triads

by aunt_zelda



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Insecurity, M/M, Multi, Self-Esteem Issues, Threesome - F/F/M, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 11:43:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8711350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/pseuds/aunt_zelda
Summary: Written for the 2016 Triad Verse Big Bang. What if relationships with three people, not two, were the norm? Joe struggles to keep his family together, Cisco deals with insecurities and fears about his relationship with Caitlin, and Lisa tries to find the right time and the right place. I haven't caught up on Season 3 yet, so this fic is all elements of S1 and S2, redone through the Triad Verse lens.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Art by xenahel can be found here: https://app.box.com/s/74vdfcxrkm2d2ho5vqegc4fse1gali5m
> 
> Triad Verse Big Bang post can be found here: [link pending]

They say that true triads and cops don’t mix. They say the best cop marriages are dyads, because a cop’s primary partner will always be the job. A cop, their job, and their spouse at home, it is said, is the ideal arrangement. 

Joe thinks about that as he watches one of the loves of his life drive away. Darren leaves him with a house full of memories and a crying daughter who still calls for mommy in the middle of the night when the nightmares get bad. They brought Francine to a rehab center, and she left within a week, vanished without a word or a letter. After the shock wore off, Darren drove away.

They say true triads and cops don’t mix. 

For a while, Joe believes that. 

He relies on the charity of friends and family, who help watch Iris and keep the house when he’s at work. Joe tries, tries to raise his baby girl right, in a house that seems too empty and big. It should be easier when Iris starts going to school, but it’s not. There are PTA meetings and Parent-Teacher conferences and Joe is always stared at, first with confusion, and then with pity. The worst is the contempt, on the faces of those who wonder why he couldn’t make his partner stay. As if there’s something wrong with him, for staying and raising Iris, instead of running off like Darren did. 

Joe makes the mistake of looking up Darren online a few years later. He finds out that Darren died in a DUI two years after he left. It shouldn’t hurt, it’s been so long, but Joe still cries, for Darren, and then for Francine all over again when the pain pours forth anew. 

He doesn’t tell Iris. He’ll tell her when she’s older, if she asks. Or she can find out for herself.

~*~

Henry and Nora Allen are bright, beautiful, and new to the school district. District lines were redrawn last November, an old school was closed, and the students have been reassigned to other schools. Their son, Barry, becomes fast friends with Iris. Joe watches them playing as he helps set up for the annual bake sale. Barry runs fast, but Iris runs faster. (Joe privately hopes that Iris will always run faster than the boys, run all the way past them and straight to college.)

“Mr. West?” Henry appears before him, laden with baked goods, and tries to shake Joe’s hand clumsily. “I’m Barry’s dad, Henry.”

“Good to finally meet you,” Joe grins, shaking his hand carefully and ending up with an armful of tupperware. “And please, call me ‘Joe.’”

“My wife has been insisting we have you over some night. You and Iris. She’s been such a friend to Barry. He was worried about moving from the old school, since all his friends got transferred to other districts. Iris made friends with him, and introduced him to all her friends, and well, Barry hasn’t been worried since.” Henry grins, and Joe can see the kind of boyish charm that must have won Nora over. It’s winning him over, to his surprise. 

“You must be Joe!” Nora comes over, helping her husband with the baked goods. “I told Allen to find you. I insist you come over for dinner. Do you like lasagna?”

“Who doesn’t?” Joe asks, smiling his best ‘I’ll just look around the backyard, ma’am, I’m sure your son won’t mind if I poke into his secret meth lab’ smile.

Nora laughs with delight, and tows the men over to the table. Together they set up the array of baked goods and signs.

It isn’t until later, much later, after the lasagna dinner, and the homemade pizza dinner, and the spaghetti dinner, and the movie night after the kids are asleep, that Joe realizes the Allens have been courting him. He’s never had a dyad after him in such a polite, respectful manner before. He almost spills his drink when the realization dawns on him. 

“You ok, Joe?” Nora asks, leaning over with concern. 

Joe looks at her, and Henry, and glances at the kids – who are curled up with their stuffed animals and fast asleep – and then back to the Allens. 

“Never better,” he smiles. 

~*~

And then that horrible night happens. Joe is called to the Allen’s house, and Nora is there, Nora is dead, and Henry is being cuffed and insisting he didn’t do it, someone else attacked her. But her blood is everywhere, everywhere, it’s going to stain the wall, they can’t let Barry see this …

Joe tells them to take him off the case, because of his personal connections to the victim and the primary suspect. 

The only suspect, it turns out. 

The accused. 

The murderer. 

The killer husband. 

It’s always the husband. It’s always the wife. 

Joe thinks back to every dinner, every date, every moment, and he can’t find any trace of it in Henry Allen. No hint, no implication. For God’s sake, the man never so much as raised his voice to his wife!

Barry insists, over and over, that another man was in the house. A man in yellow, who ran so fast he blurred. A child’s imagination, they say. Unable to cope with the reality, he invented a monster to blame it on. Or, worse, coached by his father to lie to the police on his behalf. 

Joe can barely handle the idea of Henry killing Nora. He absolutely cannot accept the idea of Henry trying to rope Barry into his plan. 

Joe is startled when Henry calls him from prison, waiting on the trial. Joe almost doesn’t go, but decides he owes it to Nora, and himself, to look into the man’s eyes. There must be something there now, at least, that Joe will be able to see. 

All he sees is Henry’s anguish and fear. 

“I didn’t do it, Joe,” Henry’s voice cracks. “I know what this looks like, I know but … I didn’t. I could never do something like that!”

Joe stands up to leave. He can’t do this. 

“Wait!” Henry reaches, pressing a hand to the plastic window separating them. “That’s not why I called you!”

Joe sits back down and steadies the phone against his ear. 

“What’s going to happen to my son? They won’t … they won’t tell me.” Henry’s eyes brim with tears. “My parents died three years ago. Nora’s parents died a long time ago. There’s an aunt, I think, a few cousins, but … they’re all on the other side of the country.”

Joe blinks. 

“He’ll go into foster care … I know what the system does to kids, Joe, please, I know you … I know you have no reason to … trust me, or believe in me, but please, don’t punish my son for this.” Henry leans forward, staring into Joe’s eyes through the window. “Could you take Barry?”

Joe sits back in shock. Take Barry? 

“He knows you, he trusts you. He and Iris, they’re so close. Barry needs a friend now, a stable presence in his life. And you … Joe, you’re like a rock, you’re like a lighthouse. I can’t think of a better person for Barry to look up to right now.” Henry is babbling, eyes wide and desperate. 

Joe thinks about Barry, waiting in the child protective services office, alone and confused and missing his parents. He thinks about Iris at home, asking why they haven’t gone to the Allens’ house lately and why Barry isn’t in school. He thinks about Nora Allen, a loving mother taken from her child before her time. He thinks about Francine somewhere out there, dead maybe or maybe with a new family.

“I don’t understand how you could have done what you did to Nora,” Joe says slowly. Henry flinches, but doesn’t say anything. 

“But uprooting Barry and sending him to live with strangers, or throwing him into the foster system at his age, would be terrible for him. He’s lost his mother. He’s lost his father. If I can, I will … I will take Barry in and raise him.” Joe glares at Henry, forcing himself to remember Nora’s bloody corpse on the floor. “He will not have contact with you, nor you with him. Do you understand me?”

Henry nods, crying. 

~*~

The paperwork is a nightmare, but Joe’s position as a cop helps, and the fact that Barry and Iris have met and are friends. Barry is transferred into Joe’s custody and moves into the spare bedroom beside Iris. Barry cries at night, but doesn’t let Joe into his room. 

Henry is tried, and found guilty. The evidence is all lined up, there is no other suspect, Henry was definitely in the house and he has no other alibi. He had means and opportunity, and while he doesn’t have a clear motive, the statistics make up for that. It’s always the husband. It’s always the wife. 

After Barry runs away the third time to try to get to Iron Heights, Joe relents. Barry can visit his father weekly, if he does his homework on time, gets good grades, and behaves himself. Joe allows Henry to write to Barry, though he reads the letters before handing them off to Barry to make sure Henry isn’t filling Barry’s head with lies. He doesn’t read Barry’s letters, and pays for the postage. 

One of their biggest fights is when Joe finds out Barry has been sending his allowance to Henry in prison, to pay for prison commissary items. Joe threatens to take away his allowance, Barry yells, Iris takes Barry’s side, and it’s awful. Doors are slammed and everyone goes to bed angry. In the morning, Joe relents, telling Barry he can spend his allowance on what he wants, but reminding him that his father probably doesn’t want him sending it all to prison. Barry glares and grumbles, but after another visit with Henry, he starts spending some of his allowance on comic books for himself. He sends half to his father, Joe knows. 

Years later, when Barry gets his first job, he saves a third, spends a third, and sends a third to his father. Joe decides that’s probably as good as it’s going to get. Henry is, after all, Barry’s father, like it or not. 

Joe didn’t have a lot of interest from people before the Allens came into his life, and now that he has two kids to raise all his free time is spent focused on them, and sleeping. His life as a cop, and his life as a father, don’t leave Joe with the opportunities or the inclination for dating. Sometimes people at the office, or on cases, try to start something, but they all balk at Joe’s mention of his kids. To potential partners, they’re symbols of failed triads, and nobody wants to become Joe’s third failure.


	2. Chapter 2

When Lisa is sixteen she thinks she’s in love. She thinks Tyler Silvetti from three blocks over is gonna take her far away from Central City’s projects, where nobody knows the name Snart or sneers at her in the streets, and where her stupid big brother can’t shadow her every move. Tyler is gonna take her somewhere glamorous and grown up, like Gotham or Opal City, and they’ll never come back to Central City ever again. 

But Tyler, it turns out, has a pair of girls uptown with engagement rings on their fingers, and Tyler’s baby in one of their bellies. Lisa was only ever gonna be another slum kid to Tyler. Tyler has big plans for getting out of the projects, but he sure as fuck wasn’t gonna take Lisa with him. 

Lisa knows then what love is, and what love isn’t. Love is what her brother feels for her, what her mama felt for her asshole dad all those years he was in jail, what rich people feel for each other. Tyler never loved Lisa; she knows that now. He probably doesn’t even love those girls uptown, he’s just using them to get the hell out of the projects. Tyler does love, though. Tyler loves his car. 

Jacking Tyler’s ride is easy enough. Driving it around Central City makes Lisa feel free for the first time in her life. She could drive it all the way to fucking Gotham if she wants, or at least until she runs out of gas.

Instead, she drives to the address of the girls wearing Tyler’s rings and rams the car into a lamppost right in front of their stupid fancy apartment complex. 

Lenny is there to pull her out of the smashed smoking car. Lisa thought the airbags would go off, but stupid Tyler disabled them. 

“What the hell?!” Lenny is screaming in her face, pulling her onto his bike. “The cops are coming, we can’t be here! Hold on!”

Lenny doesn’t yell when they get home. He checks her for cuts and bruises and shines a flashlight in her eyes, and bandages her up. He makes her drink water and paces around the room, swearing over and over. 

“What were you thinking, Lisa? Tyler’s a player. You know better.”

“He said he was gonna take me away,” Lisa mumbles, staring at the kitchen floor, the peeling linoleum. “We were gonna find a girl somewhere out west and start a family.”

“And you believed that?” Len curses. “You’re not stupid, Lisa. You stayed in school longer than I did, and mom raised you right. You’re not an idiot. Why the hell would you believe that crap from someone like Tyler fucking Silvetti?”

“We can’t all be dyad freaks!” Lisa snaps. It’s a low blow but she doesn’t give a fuck. “I wanted a normal fucking relationship, is that so much to ask?!”

Len glares. “This ain’t about me and Mick. This is about you, and you doing stupid shit like jacking cars and crashing them uptown!” Len almost never raises his voice. It’s scary. He looks like their dad. “What if I hadn’t been there tonight, huh? Cops woulda arrested your ass, tossed you into juvie, taken away my custody. You want that? A couple years in juvie with crazy chicks who like to knife people for fun? Getting dumped with some family that just wants the benefits checks for keeping you in their house?”

“Seemed to work ok for you,” Lisa mumbles. She’s lost this argument and she knows it, but damn if she isn’t going down swinging. 

“No, it didn’t. It fucking sucked, and I’m lucky Mick was there to watch my back. You need to stay outta jail, outta juvie, forever. You’re smart, Lisa, you could be anything. So don’t be a screw-up, ok?”

Lisa looks up and sees that Len is crying. Fuck. This really is bad. Len’s annoying but he’s still her big brother, her only family now as far as Lisa’s concerned. He does try, real hard. He coulda fucked off and left her to the system, but instead he stuck around for years. 

“… ok, Len.” Lisa says. “I’ll do my best to not be a screw-up.” 

And she means it.


	3. Chapter 3

At first, Cisco thinks he’s in some kind of ridiculous simulation. No way does a guy like him get this lucky: not just a job at Star Labs, the favorite employee after Harley gets fired, but he’s working alongside a gorgeous dyad couple every single day, and they’re flirting with him pretty much from day one. Cisco has everything he could possibly want. He flirts back, cautiously at first, playfully, in case he’s misreading the signals. After a few weeks of tension, Ronnie reels him in for a kiss after work and Caitlin slides her hand into his, and Cisco finds out that no, he wasn’t misreading any signals. If anything, he’d been too cautious. 

After a few months though, things start to nag at Cisco’s overworked mind. Details, adding up day by day, week by week. Work distracts him, but it’s not enough to occupy his mind 100%. 

Cisco tries to just enjoy the ride. Ronnie and Caitlin are smart, beautiful, sexy as hell, communicative like Jaeger pilots, and everything you’re supposed to look for in a dyad. 

It’s just that he can’t shake the feeling that he’s not the third they’re looking for to complete their relationship. He’s a practice partner, a “tricycle,” as cast-off thirds are often called derogatorily. 

After months of dating, of spending the night at their apartment, of being kissed at work in front of everyone, he still hasn’t met their parents. There’s been no talk of including Cisco in the joining ceremonies. There’s no ring for him, and while they have only been dating a short while, Ronnie and Caitlin were already engaged. Why spend the money on a dyadic preliminary joining and then spend even more on a wedding, when you could just make it a proper wedding to begin with? It’s not uncommon for a longtime dyad couple on the cusp of a joining ceremony to find their third, and make it a surprise wedding. It’s the kind of sappy stuff Cisco used to roll his eyes over as a kid when it happened in movies, but secretly it’s always been a bit of a fantasy of his. A dedicated dyad couple about to be joined, suddenly reaching out for him and welcoming him into a true triad marriage … it’s a silly fairy tale in his mind. 

Honestly, Cisco would just love to rub it in Dante’s smug face, that Cisco was the one to get married first. Cisco likes to imagine having a kid first too, making his mother the grandmother she’s clearly primed to become and his fathers the grandpas they want to be. (Though kids are, obviously, several years down the road for him at least.)

Cisco sets a deadline for himself. Before the joining, after the Particle Accelerator gala, he’ll confront Ronnie and Caitlin about their intentions. That way, he’ll have a solid year of experience on his resume if he has to leave Star Labs out of sheer mortification. Though he feels that, as the tricycle in that arrangement, he should be the one to keep his job and they should be the ones to leave. 

None of it matters though, because of the explosion. 

~*~

Ronnie, stupid heroic Ronnie, goes out into the tunnel and forces Cisco to wait on the other side of the door. Cisco waits and watches and the blast knocks him off of his feet. Caitlin is upstairs and Ronnie is dead and Cisco flickers in and out of consciousness until the paramedics arrive. They stabilize him, or so they say, but Cisco has never felt less stable in his life. 

Caitlin is a shell when he finds her. She’s pale and her face is wet and she looks oddly small. Cisco has always thought of Caitlin as a tall woman, towering on heels and cutting an impressive figure in fashionable dresses and skirts. She sits on the edge of an ambulance, wrapped in a blanket, and stares into space. 

Cisco sits beside her. She doesn’t acknowledge him at all. 

When Caitlin withdraws in the wake of Ronnie’s death, Cisco takes that as confirmation that he was a tricycle to them after all. 

He and Caitlin go back to being friends. Close friends, but merely friends. Caitlin doesn’t invite him over at night. The good-morning kisses stop, the dates stop, she even stops hugging him. Cisco feels the absence of Ronnie painfully, and knows Caitlin must be going through hell at her apartment every night, staring at the boxes of Ronnie’s things she can’t bear to throw out. 

One by one, Star Labs empties. The other employees leave, quitting or fleeing, trying to salvage their reputations. Dr. Wells glides around the lab in his wheelchair, and he looks just as lost as Cisco feels. He’s a stranger in his own lab.

Caitlin stays. So does Cisco, though it might be the wrong choice, because he’s weak and he can’t stand to tear himself from Caitlin’s side, even if she’s pushed him several steps away from her. 

Cisco watches Barry Allen’s adopted sister wait at his bedside in Star Labs for weeks, for months. She’s beautiful, though there are bags under her eyes and she’s obviously torn up about the whole thing. Cisco hopes they can save Barry Allen, if only so that he can see Iris West smile. 

After test after test, finally, Barry Allen wakes up. Iris West’s smile lights up the whole room. 

Cisco remembers when Caitlin used to look at him like that, when Ronnie used to look at him like that. He pushes that thought down, as deep as he can, and continues. 

There’s work to be done at Star Labs, especially now that he and Caitlin are the only employees left. 

~*~

Things come to a head after yet another crisis in Central City. A bad guy appears, Barry runs really fast, Cisco and Caitlin number crunch and brainstorm, and the bad guy gets defeated. 

One week, though, things are different. The stress weighs on them more heavily, Dr. Wells is snappier than usual, Barry is lost in a mess of his own making with his family life. Caitlin makes an offhand comment to Cisco, which sets him off, and suddenly they’re fighting like Cisco and Harley used to fight, shouting until the lab walls echo. 

“What happened to us, Cisco?” Caitlin asks, faintly, after the shouting is done. 

“What happened … are you seriously asking me that?!” Cisco turns away from Caitlin, tugging his hands through his hair. “You know what you were doing. And you just stand there and pretend like you didn’t … you weren’t … all those months, you and Ronnie, just …”

“Ronnie?” Caitlin blinks. 

“I mean, I know you and Ronnie never thought of me as long-term but … I was your partner too!” Cisco blinks back tears furiously.

“Ronnie and I … what?” Caitlin gapes at him. “You thought we … we didn’t … Cisco what are you talking about?”

“I was your practice partner. Until you found someone for the long-haul.” Cisco gestures to himself. “I get it, ok? I’m not the kind of guy you take home to your mom, but –”

Caitlin lunges forward, kissing him deeply. She grabs onto his jacket and holds him tightly, keeping him in her grasp before pulling back from the kiss. 

“What –”

“You weren’t ‘practice,’ Cisco,” her eyes are shining with tears now too. “I am so sorry that I didn’t, that we didn’t make that clear, back then, before … everything.” Caitlin kisses him again, softer, sweeter. “I thought you’d want to move on, you wouldn’t say that but you’d think it. I thought that you shouldn’t be dragged down by sad old me and an apartment full of Ronnie’s things. So I … I let you go. Or I tried to. I thought I was doing the right thing, for you. You’re so wonderful, Cisco, and I was just such a … a mess, after the explosion.”

Cisco puts his hands on Caitlin’s shoulders. “No, I’m sorry. You pushed me away and I should have kept coming back to make sure you were ok. Because you weren’t ok. And I was just letting you handle that alone.”  
Caitlin snuffles, rubbing her wet face on her hand. “Look at us. We’re so smart … how’d we get so stupid?”

Cisco laughs. “I don’t know.” He rummages in a nearby desk and finds a tissue packet, which he hands off to Caitlin. 

“Can we … can we go home, please?” Caitlin asks, after blowing her nose like a foghorn. 

Cisco nods before thinking. “Oh, wait, where –”

“Home, Cisco,” Caitlin says, pointedly. “We’re going to drink, we’re going to pack up some things to donate that I should have dealt with months ago, and then we’re going to crawl into bed together.” Her face falters. “If … if that’s still what you want …?”

Cisco takes her hand. “I’ve never stopped wanting that.”

They go back to Caitlin’s apartment, drink, and make halfhearted attempts to pack up some things. They do at least take the wedding dress down and put it deep into the back of a closet, behind ratty coats and a hideous floral print dress Caitlin says she’s been meaning to turn into art some weekend. 

Cisco hesitates at the edge of the mattress. The last time he was here, Ronnie was at his back, murmuring into his ear while Caitlin stretched out on the bed in lingerie that Cisco had just discovered was coordinated to her belt and jewelry during the day at Star Labs. 

Now Caitlin is clad in a baggy t-shirt and sweatpants. Her makeup washed off and her hair loosely braided for bed, she huddles on her side of the mattress. “You … you can sleep on the couch, if you want. No pressure.”

Cisco climbs under the covers and shifts closer to her, letting her bridge the gap. 

“Thank you,” Caitlin whispers, hugging Cisco. 

“Thank you,” Cisco whispers back. 

They sleep dreamlessly, and they sleep well.


	4. Chapter 4

It’s been a long time since Lisa was sixteen and stupid. Lenny would say she still has a bit of an impulsive streak, but so long as it doesn’t involve boys like Tyler Silvetti anymore, Lenny doesn’t give her too much trouble about that. 

They pull jobs now, together. They’ve got the makings of a proper crew, if only they could keep other people around for more than a job or two. The dynamics are too weird, and they never seem to gel properly. Someone invariably makes a pass at Len, or rarely Mick, or a nasty comment about dyads, and that brings things to an end. Anyone looking to get with Lisa has to face her stringent vetting process, which ultimately leaves space for nothing but casual affairs. Lisa doesn’t want to settle down, not yet, maybe not ever. 

One night after a heist, Lisa and Len are hunkered down at one of their various safehouses. The heist was small enough that the Flash didn’t feel the need to show his face, and the goods have already been fenced. 

Mick comes in around midnight, his shirt torn and knuckles bleeding. He smells like smoke, more so than usual. The heist was good, but Mick still craves the rush of a good arson job. 

“It’s done, Lenny,” Mick mumbles. 

Len yanks him down for a kiss. 

Lisa makes a face. She’s known they’re strictly dyadic for most of her life, and it’s fucking weird, no matter what Len says about not everyone having to triple up eventually. Lisa wonders sometimes if it’s a prison thing: Len and Mick have been in and out of prison for years together, and prisoners are kept in cells of two to discourage triads forming behind bars. Maybe prison fucks with your head enough that you think a dyadic relationship is viable forever. They’ve never even talked about getting a third, at least not where Lisa could hear. 

“Did you hear what they called you last job, behind your back?” Lisa asks, when Mick leaves to shower. 

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me all about it.” Len drawls, glancing between her and the flickering TV.

“They called you ‘Mom.’ Like, all the time.” Lisa grins. 

Len cracks a smile. “Wow. Really?”

“Yeah.”

“And here I thought I had a paternal attitude towards running our teams,” Len smirks. “Guess I should change my habits a bit next time.”

They lapse into silence, but for Lisa, that leaves room for intrusive thoughts on the subject of mothers, real and metaphorical. 

She and Len don’t talk about Lisa’s biological mother. When Lisa was little she noticed that she didn’t look like her and Lenny’s mom, that her skin was pale and her hair was straight and people looked at them funny in the grocery store sometimes. She asked once, got told, and that was the end of it. 

All Lisa knows about the woman who gave birth to her is that she’s the reason Lisa’s mouth waters whenever she smells cigarettes, even though Lisa hates the things. Lisa knows that woman’s the reason Len gets nervous when Lisa drinks, the reason Len kicked the ass of that guy in the apartment block who was selling smack, the reason Lenny gets nervous whenever their dad comes home after a stint in jail with a woman on his arm and a bag of powder in her hand. 

It shouldn’t bother Lisa, that she grew up with a lone mother and even when her dad was around he was worse than nothing. There’s plenty of kids in their neighborhood who grew up with lone parents, or dyad couples with waiting on their third in prison. There wasn’t a shame about it at school, not so long as Lisa stuck around at least. But she sometimes wonders what it would have been like, to grow up with a proper trio of parents in the house. Always someone to be there for her, never a fear that if something bad happened she and Lenny would have to go into hiding or face the foster system. 

“Gotta get our guns back,” Len mutters, startling Lisa out of her thoughts. 

“How are you gonna do that? Steal from STAR Labs?” Lisa smirks. “Their security’s bad, but I don’t think you can just waltz in there again.”

“I’ll think of something. We’ve got some time.” Len says. 

Lisa nods. Len always comes up with the best plans. 

~*~

Months later they’re all pretending to be allies. The Flash needs some metas moved to an airfield, and Lisa’s apparently their only contact with a truck license. She’s set to drive a truck full of metas across town. Len’s got a plan though, as always. 

In the meantime, as they wait for things to get settled, Lisa sets about flustering Cisco. 

Flustering Cisco is fun. Alone in a wing of the lab, peeking over his shoulders as he tries to work, is a lot of fun. Lisa chases him around the room all evening, while everyone else runs around setting up the grand plan. 

Cisco shifts uncomfortably. “Um, look, I’m really flattered, but I’m in a triad right now.”

Lisa raises her eyebrows. “Really? I knew you and Dr. Snow were a thing, but I’ve never seen a third.”

“It’s … long distance …” Cisco says carefully, clearly hiding something. “It’s complicated. He has to do a lot of traveling right now.”

“Sounds like he’s not a very good third,” Lisa says, rolling her shoulders back. “Leaving you and Snow here, all by your lonesome, for anyone to snap up …”

Cisco glares. “It’s not like that.”

“No?” Lisa leans forward, grinning. “Pretty pair like you is all kinds of tempting. What’s that, that kind of vase that’s worth more as a matched set?” Lisa bites her lip in contemplation. “I’ll have to ask Lenny about that later. Anyways, you and Snow? Any loner would be crazy not to want to grab you for themselves while your third is away.”

“What, you … you think you could just steal us?” Cisco laughs, but it’s a strained noise. Lisa’s close proximity is unnerving him. 

“Steal you? Hmm,” Lisa mulls that over. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” She spreads her hands. “I could just snatch you on my next robbery. Make you part of the haul, bring you back to the lair. Wouldn’t let Lenny or Mick touch you though, you’d both be all mine.” Lisa giggles at the idea. 

Cisco snorts. “What, like, tie us up and put us on top of some dragon hoard?”

Lisa raises her eyebrows. “I never said anything about tying you up. You into that, Cisco?” she takes several steps forward. “I bet I know all kinds of fun knots you’ve never even heard of before.”

Cisco folds his arms and puts on a stern expression. “You need to stop. And leave us alone.” 

Dammit. She pushed too hard. Lisa pouts, and wanders off.

Later that evening, before Len’s plan goes into motion, she has some alone time with Cisco in the front of the truck. For all his bluster, he plays along, and even gives her a pretty nickame. Maybe she didn’t push too hard after all. 

~*~

It’s more than half a year before she sees Cisco and Caitlin again. Lewis is back, and he’s doing what Lewis does best: mess everything up. This time he didn’t just smack Lisa around, he stuck a bomb in her neck. No honor among thieves, not even among family, according to Lewis. 

Lisa is happy when Len kills Lewis. Well, she’s a little sad, because it means Len is going to Iron Heights, but he won’t stay there long. She’ll bust him out, or Mick will, or they both will, because Mick separated from Len for too long is a terrible idea. Besides, Len made good on his promise to Lisa all those years ago: that the next time Lewis put his hands on her, Len would kill him. 

Lisa lingers at STAR Labs, letting Caitlin fuss over her neck puncture. She’s figured out from Cisco’s insinuations this time around, and how he’s far more susceptible to her flirtations, that their mysterious third is no longer in the picture. 

Caitlin though, Caitlin’s a hard nut to crack. Cisco’s easy to fluster but Dr. Snow … it’s like there’s an icy shell around her, blocking everyone but Cisco from getting too close. 

“You got a problem, Red?” Lisa asks, leaning over the desk to meet Caitlin’s eyes. 

Caitlin purses her lips, then stands up sharply. “I do, actually!” she glares. “Cisco and I are dyad partners, and I don’t appreciate you trying to steal him away like he’s some, some diamond on one of your heists!” 

Lisa smirks. “Steal him?”

“Yes! You … you thief!” Caitlin spits the word like others would spit out a slur. “You can’t just flounce in here and take whatever, whoever you want –”

Lisa steps closer. “Can’t I?” she asks, moving into Caitlin’s personal space. She’s close enough to kiss, she would if she thought that’s what it’d take, but she thinks Dr. Snow is gonna have to make the first move here. “Prove me wrong, Red,” Lisa grins, looking Caitlin in the eye. 

Something flickers in Caitlin’s eyes, and she leans forward and kisses Lisa. The kiss isn’t the quick chaste thing Lisa was expecting. It’s deep, almost exploratory, as Caitlin shifts her head from side to side and reaches up, putting a hand on Lisa’s cheek to steady her. 

By they time they pull away, Lisa can see her makeup smeared all over Caitlin’s lips and a bit of her chin. 

“Wasn’t just trying to steal Cisco,” Lisa says, pulling out her lipstick and reapplying it quickly, so she doesn’t have to look Caitlin in the eye and reveal how the kiss actually flustered her quite a bit. “I was trying to steal you both. Matched set and all. Thought you knew. I was being pretty obvious, Red.” 

Caitlin blushes. “I don’t have a lot of, uh, experience with … women. All my dyads and triads have been me and boys. Men. Guys.” She stutters. 

“Really?” Lisa leans against the desk. “Just think about what we could do to Cisco together. Blow his pretty mind. Short-circuit him for days.”

Caitlin giggles. “That … that is a fun idea.”

“Think we could finally shut him up for five minutes?” Lisa asks.

“I think we could figure something out.” Caitlin smiles.

Cisco, for his part, loses the ability to speak coherently for a solid hour once Caitlin and Lisa drag him into the nearest bedroom. As far as he’s concerned, that’s perfectly fine.


	5. Epilogue

Joe can’t believe it.

After all the years, the waiting, the revelations about Barry’s powers and Henry’s innocence, metahumans and Harrison Wells and time travel and psychic gorillas, Henry Allen is a free man. He’s been exonerated. A recording from a time traveling murderer from the future exonerated him.

Henry walks into the West household and looks around, drinking in every detail. Joe feels a pang of guilt for everything that’s changed in the ensuing years, the paintings moved, the new photos, the furniture rearranging. Hell most of the walls are even different colors now, he and Iris and Barry went on a redecorating spree the summer before their senior year of high school as a family project. 

“A lot’s changed,” Henry says, and though his tone is light, his eyes are sad. The man’s lost a lot of years. 

“Yeah,” Joe agrees. He reaches out to put a hand on Henry’s shoulder and hesitates. 

Henry reaches for Joe’s hand, pulling it to his shoulder. 

Joe doesn’t want to stop. He wants to pull Henry close, embrace him, pretend that somehow the last few years didn’t happen, that Nora is upstairs putting the kids to bed and they’re going to watch some VHS they rented from Blockbuster that they won’t even pay attention to.

Then everyone is there, the kids swarming, their friends being polite but slightly awkward. Cisco and Caitlin link arms with their new girlfriend, the youngest Snart, who looks pretty good when she’s not the subject of a police alert. She keeps darting nervous looks in Joe’s direction. He’s been watching her too though, so he supposes that fair’s fair. 

Linda hasn’t met Henry yet. She shakes his hand and smiles confidently at him. Afterwards, Henry glances with approval at Barry. Joe does too – it took some time, and a lot of rearranging, but eventually Barry and Iris and Linda got themselves organized into a triad. 

Dr. Tina McGee introduces herself to Henry, a glass of wine in one hand and her sharp tone softened for him. Joe watches them with interest, sees the spark of something between them. He’s often been frustrated by his interactions with Dr. McGee in a professional setting, but he’s always admired her strength and determination. 

Perhaps … perhaps this is the beginning of something. Two of his kids are practically engaged, that time travel stuff is done with, Jay or Hunter or whatever his name was can’t come back from the dead, and Henry is free. 

They all sit down to dinner. Joe gets the prickling sensation on the back of his neck that something bad is supposed to happen now. He can’t really be sitting down to dinner with his family and friends, safe and sound, a bright future ahead of them all. 

But no shark crashes through the ceiling. No psychic gorilla attacks. No time travelers time travel. 

The food is served. The food is eaten. People talk and laugh and toast after toast is made. 

Joe looks at Henry out over the table. They share a smile.

They say that true triads and cops don’t mix. Maybe Joe and Henry can prove that wrong.


End file.
